Sat, May 07, 2011 - Page 11

The TAIEX fell 41.38 points, or 0.46 percent, to 8,977.23 points, after moving between 8,954.81 and 9,018.40, on turnover of NT$126.69 billion (US$4.42 billion).

NT$100bn in CDs auctioned off

The central bank sold NT$100 billion in 364-day certificates of deposit (CD) at an average interest rate of 0.975 percent at an auction yesterday, it said in a statement.

The sale attracted bids for 2.9 times the amount of securities on offer, the central bank said. The monetary authority last sold similar-maturity certificates on April 8 at an interest rate of 0.935 percent. That offer garnered a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.73 times.

Next TV to enhance Web portal

Next TV (壹電視), one of Taiwan’s new entrants into the Internet TV industry, is gearing up to launch games and Internet shopping services to add appeal to its current TV service.

The Internet TV portal, which belongs to Next Media Ltd (壹傳媒), aims to grab a “large” slice of Taiwan’s market share by the end of the year, a company executive said on Thursday.

Next TV currently boasts more than 1,000 titles in its offerings and started to charge for some programs since last month. Other income sources include commercial sponsorships, the executive said.

Launched late last year through a set-top-box giveaway promotion, the Internet TV service is competing with Chunghwa Telecom Co’s (中華電信) industry leader MOD.

Total sales for the first four months were NT$12.6 billion, a rise of 87 percent from last year, it said in a statement.

E Ink, which produces e-papers for Amazon’s Kindle, said greater momentum from Europe and Russia this year would offset the slow growth in the US, which is currently dominated by Apple Inc’s iPads.

VIS’ sales drop 4%

Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (VIS, 世界先進), a maker of driver ICs for LCD panels, yesterday announced net sales of NT$1.3 billion for last month, representing a 4 percent decrease from the same period last year.

From January to last month, accumulated net sales totaled NT$5.3 billion, showing an increase of 7.4 percent from last year.

VIS spokesperson D.L. Tseng (曾棟樑) said in a statement that because of the change in product mix and unfavorable currency exchange rate, net sales last month decreased about 3.5 percent month-on-month.

China Steel profit increases

China Steel Corp (中鋼), the nation’s biggest steelmaker, posted a pretax profit of NT$3.76 billion last month, up 7.1 percent from the previous month, the Kaohsiung-based company said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday.

Revenue was NT$21.08 billion last month, up 1.9 percent from March, the company said.

NT dollar drops by 0.5%

The New Taiwan dollar declined the most in 10 weeks on suspected intervention by the central bank, according to two traders who declined to be identified.

The NT dollar weakened 0.5 percent today to close at NT$28.778 against its US counterpart, according to Taipei Forex Inc. That was the biggest one-day decline since Feb. 24.